From week to week, and soon from day to day, the cold shadow of death gained upon him.  His end was rapidly approaching; his sufferings became more and more intense; his crises grew more frequent, and at each accelerated occurrence, resembled more and more a mortal agony.  He retained his presence of mind, his vivid will upon their intermission, until the last; neither losing the precision of his ideas, nor the clear perception of his intentions.  The wishes which he expressed in his short moments of respite, evinced the calm solemnity with which he contemplated the approach of death.  He desired to be buried by the side of Bellini, with whom, during the time of Bellini’s residence in Paris, he had been intimately acquainted.  The grave of Bellini is in the cemetery of Pere LaChaise, next to that of Cherubini.  The desire of forming an acquaintance with this great master whom he had been brought up to admire, was one of the motives which, when he left Vienna in 1831 to go to London, induced him, without foreseeing that his destiny would fix him there, to pass through Paris.  Chopin now sleeps between Bellini and Cherubini, men of very dissimilar genius, and yet to both of whom he was in an equal degree allied, as he attached as much value to the respect he felt for the science of the one, as to the sympathy he acknowledged for the creations of the other.  Like the author of Norma, he was full of melodic feeling, yet he was ambitions of attaining the harmonic depth of the learned old master; desiring to unite, in a great and elevated style, the dreamy vagueness of spontaneous emotion with the erudition of the most consummate masters.

Continuing the reserve of his manners to the very last, he did not request to see. any one for the last time; but he evinced the most touching gratitude to all who approached him.  The first days of October left neither doubt nor hope.  The fatal moment drew near.  The next day, the next hour, could no longer be relied upon.  M. Gutman and his sister were in constant attendance upon him, never for a single moment leaving him.  The Countess Delphine Potocka, who was then absent from Paris, returned as soon as she was informed of his imminent danger.  None of those who approached the dying artist, could tear themselves from the spectacle of this great and gifted soul in its hours of mortal anguish.

However violent or frivolous the passions may be which agitate our hearts, whatever strength or indifference may be displayed in meeting unforeseen or sudden accidents, which would seem necessarily overwhelming in their effects, it is impossible to escape the impression made by the imposing majesty of a lingering and beautiful death, which touches, softens, fascinates and elevates even the souls the least prepared for such holy and sublime emotions.  The lingering and gradual departure of one among us for those unknown shores, the mysterious solemnity of his secret dreams, his commemoration of past facts and passing ideas when still breathing